Want
by Gilpin
Summary: He reminds himself sternly that they aren’t lovers, he shouldn’t be dreaming of or considering this as an option, and ignores the voice inside his head that persists in whispering 'yet'. Moments in the relationship between Remus and Tonks, OotP to HBP.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Notes: **Originally written for the **MetamorficMoon** Beatles and the Bard Timeless Moon Ball. My prompts were the lyrics: I was alone, I took a ride/I didn't know what I would find there/Another road where maybe I/Could see another kind of mind there. 'Got To Get You Into My Life' - The Beatles. My other prompt was the word 'Want'. I didn't pick a very imaginative title for this, lol, but that is such a great word to be given to use for an R/T story spanning OotP and HBP..._

* * *

**Want **

**Part I**

Her birthday.

She's touched by the small gifts (especially the knitted magenta waistcoat from Molly, which will be just the thing for that silver brooch), and literally touched by the hugs and kisses that accompany them. Some are like being embraced by that elderly whiskery aunt with seemingly too much saliva going spare, who you feigned colds or toothache to avoid as a child. Others, like Mad-Eye's, are brief and bone-crushing round the ribs, and make him cough harshly afterwards so that he doesn't say anything too sentimental to go along with it. She hugs him again before he can move away, and laughs when it's only after she's done it that he tells her to stop all that fussing about over nothing she goes in for.

By devious means that show all the extra studying at Stealth over the years has finally paid off, she saves Remus till the very last. Or has he saved her?

A moment's hesitation on both sides as she waits and his eyes flicker sideways, carefully checking everyone else has gone. He smiles slightly, looking as if he's nerving himself to do this – God, what if he _doesn't_ want to? – and then his arms slip round her and all at once the embrace is both comforting and reassuring. Bringing with it a sense of belonging, of coming home. His arms tighten, drawing her closer, and the feel of him against her makes her heart pound so much she can't tell if his is doing the same in return.

"Happy birthday, Tonks." The words a whisper against her ear. His breath stirs her hair as he moves to kiss her cheek.

She turns her head at the same time before she has chance to think this through again. Her lips meet his. Decisively. For a second he's taken aback, for another it's solely her kissing him and then, as she starts to pull away in mortified embarrassment, those soft lips move under hers so that she can taste the warmth of his mouth and he kisses her back with a gentle but insistent pressure.

For the longest moment, nothing else matters. Not even clutching a handful of his shirt in her fist for balance as she's all but overwhelmed by something which can only be longing for this man.

They separate and she opens her eyes very slowly and looks at him. An utterly unhandsome face of lines and tiredness which is unremarkable except for eyes that might be blue or grey, or both, and a smile that is full of kind, slightly wicked humour. Not that tall but thin, very thin, and it's the thinness of a man who has known too much pain and sorrow far too young. There isn't simply age but a lifetime of experiences between them, and a totally different way of viewing the world as something that can hurt you and those you care for very badly indeed.

It makes no difference. Her heart still pounds like a mad thing.

"Tonks…" His expression is grave and she looks at him and swallows, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks. At the same time getting ready to ask what the hell he thinks he's been playing at, then, these last few weeks, because her way is always to meet things head on, and she's beginning to wonder as those weeks have gone by if his is to avoid them.

"We need to talk," he says, rather thickly, and she waits, imagining the polite brush-off. As in _You're a very nice girl, Nymphadora, and I'm delighted you feel so, erm, friendly towards me. But how on earth could you ever imagine that I lie awake at night and think about the same things you do? About us. Wondering what we'd be like together. Because it would be laughable if it wasn't so very sad, wouldn't it?_

"I thought perhaps we could go out somewhere," Remus says, and the lips that have covered hers curve slowly now into an easier, more assured smile. "Alone."

* * *

He finally tells Sirius, partly because it's a reminder of the past when his first thought would have been to share most things (as opposed to now, when his first is to do nothing of the sort), and partly because he has a strange need to say it out loud. It's obviously true that lovers have a compulsion to shout their happiness from the nearest available rooftop, and conveniently ignore the fact that in this case Grimmauld's is more than likely a broken-tiled death trap.

He reminds himself sternly that they aren't lovers, he shouldn't be dreaming of or considering this as an option, and ignores the voice inside his head that persists in whispering _yet._

"Yeah, I guessed something was going on from the furtive and fevered glances." Sirius looks up briefly from the photograph album he's sorting through with a face which seems fixed in a permanent scowl. Dumbledore's given him a list of objects and people to see if he can find but it appears peace of mind isn't amongst them. The frown eases for a moment, though, as he adds, "And going well as you've got round to officially telling me?"

"… Yes." Remus says it warily, not wanting Sirius to be offended at not being told straight off. He catches a glimpse of the pages which he's stared at himself lately, struck by the familiar aristocratic lines and slenderness of the Black family females. He's recognised Tonks' high cheekbones, even the delicately arched brows, but the vibrancy, humour and complete lack of arrogance seem very much her own.

Sirius, it seems, has taken no offence and, typically, comes up with the most unlikely of responses to go with it. "She's exactly your type at last."

"She…" Remus splutters into his tea and puts the mug down hurriedly. "I wasn't aware I had a _type_ and, if I had, I can't think of anyone less likely—"

"No." Sirius flicks a page of the album over dismissively and Remus recognises pictures of his parents from the brief glimpse. "Those girls you went for at school – all very nice in their way, all very smart. Rule abiding. And that suited you fine because you were all for fitting in back then. Till they bored you stupid, and you didn't like to say that, so you tied yourself up in knots over the werewolf thing because you knew they'd never handle it and you had a good excuse to break things off before they got too heavy." He rubs his forehead as though it aches and looks down at the page in front of him. "You know my dear father always stood a step behind Mother in all these pictures. Certainly knew his place."

Remus is so taken aback by the accuracy of the observations in both cases – and from a man who never bothered to analyse relationships, or anything very much – that he needs a moment to think of a reply.

Sirius shoots him a grin, with a flash of the old charm and conceit in equal measure. "Don't look so surprised, Moony. I had to think about something in Azkaban that didn't involve disembowelling Peter."

He finds his voice to resume the light-hearted, cynical tone they both seem most comfortable with now. "I thought you might take up knitting rather than turn into a deep-thinking philosopher."

"Merlin forbid," Sirius says feelingly, and they both laugh. But he adds, "You must be in pretty deep to have gone for this. Tonks is going to rattle your cage all right."

The choice of words hits Remus and he's still thinking about them hours later as he walks Tonks home from their drink out which turned into three or four he can ill afford. If anyone's in a cage, it's Sirius, and his is one of four mouldy, forbidding walls full of painful memories, while Remus' is merely one of legislation, reputation and fear that's increased over the years.

A slender hand touches his purposefully. His fingers catch and entwine with hers and her smooth palm slides comfortably against his like it belongs there.

"Tonks," he starts, though not letting go till he has to.

"Now we've had this conversation once already. If not a hundred times." She grins irrepressibly up at him, very close to his shoulder, the dark eyes vivid against the pale blur of her face in the half-dark. "In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if you're as deaf as a post and desperately trying to hide it from me."

"You know I'm concerned about people seeing—"

"Ashamed to be with me, is that it?" There's an attempt at a rueful shrug which is ruined by the bubble of laughter in her voice. "I did say sorry for looking like a giant ink blot when I tried out the navy blue hair, but I can't really blame you, I suppose."

"Tonks." He stops dead and she turns round to face him, still smiling and now far too close. Which is a mistake, as is repeating her name like an endearment, and he can smell her scent as he's been doing all night and he wants nothing so much as to pull her into his arms right there and then. Middle of the street be damned. "You know it's not that. You know how – how much it means that you want to hold hands with me in public. But it's not a good idea. Not for you. I'm fairly well known now, and for all the wrong reasons, and it's not wise for you to be associated with—"

"Mmn." She's looking down at their clasped hands and, _bloody hell_, clearly not listening to a single word he's said. "But I always thought that when two people go out together, and are proud to be seen together, they like to show the world how happy they are." The dark eyes rise up to his, challengingly. "Unless you're not happy, of course?"

He swallows at the lump in his throat which formed when she, this lovely, generous girl, actually said she was proud to be seen with him. That she wants to make a public statement about them when he won't even let her tell Molly (who will be overly excited), Mad-Eye (possibly for purposes of self-preservation) or the other Order members yet.

_She'll rattle your cage all right_. What Sirius didn't know was how much he'd revel in it as well as be terrified about the consequences of it for her.

"If I tell you how happy I am, it would embarrass both of us," he says, giving in, because it's much easier to do what he really wants, and raises her hand so that he can feel the fragile bones of her fingers against his lips.

It's hard to tell in this half-light, half-dark, but he'd swear she's blushing.

"I can take a lot of embarrassment. I've had to over the many years of falling down holes and causing inanimate objects to self-destruct."

"Yes, but that will be nothing compared to this. It's a good job there's no one about to see you." He smiles back at her like a besotted idiot with her hand still tight in his, when a voice in the gloom from a figure scurrying by makes them both jump.

"Fine evening, Mr Lupin! Miss Tonks!"

Randolph Aird, from Obscurus Books. A nice man. He's found some wonderful second, or even third hand bargains for Remus over the years.

They both call out a greeting to his rapidly retreating back, watch his hand fly up and wave in acknowledgment, and laugh the minute he's out of earshot.

"You arranged that deliberately to show me up," Remus says, trying to sound accusing, and only succeeding in shaking his head in amusement at the perfect timing of it all.

"Oh, don't blame me! Poor Randolph's probably been waiting hours round the corner for the right moment to show you that not everyone's blinkered, prejudiced, or a complete arse."

"Nevertheless—"

"I've noted your 'nevertheless', Remus. How about trying ever-the-more instead? Now is this going to be one of those relationships where I have to kiss you first every time? As it's not going to be very good for my ego if that is the case."

"I don't think your ego need worry much." He squeezes her hand to let her know she's won this round for now. Even if it feels like he has as well.

He still gently pulls her forward, waiting until they're safely hidden in the dark, comforting shadows of her doorway before covering her face in kisses as he's longed to do all night.

* * *

It's been nearly three months now. Three months of laughing at jokes only they get and sometimes arguing over subjects only they get (though he's infuriating to argue with as he simply gets cooler and calmer and more logical, while she gets hotter and wilder and more emotional). Sharing their days, their fears, their frustrations, and the thoughts they share with no one else. Knowing someone is there if they want to send an owl at a ridiculous time and have a ridiculous conversation. Three months of tender and passionate kisses, of increasingly bold fumbling with each other's clothing and bodies, and the feeling that they are on the verge of so much more. Being unable to remember quite what life felt like before this.

Three months meaning three more transformations for him.

She's learnt the routine now. How he starts to withdraw into himself a couple of days beforehand, cutting the physical contact between them down to a bare minimum, although she can tell he wants the reassurance of it even more. How Sirius becomes more organising and dominant, pleased to have a purpose again. It makes her feel as though it's nothing to do with her when Sirius is the one discussing the new potion for easing muscle pain (the details of which she found), and it's Sirius who is discussing arrangements for the cellar in Grimmauld's basement, which Remus is using again now the kids are back at school.

It's when she hears what those arrangements are that she feels even more ashamed and could weep for what he must bear alone.

Then there's the difficulty of what to say to a man about to face the horror of having his body ripped open and his skeleton reformed, the last time having been a case in point. "See you Monday evening," Remus had said calmly, and she'd wavered idiotically between saying in return, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do" or "Take care." Before blurting out, "I'll be waiting for you." At which the set line of his mouth had softened and she'd kissed him fiercely, tasting the ghastly, bitter Wolfsbane, and then kissed him even harder to show she didn't care. Till he gently whispered, "Please go now, Tonks" against her lips, and she wasn't at all sure from the momentary despair in his eyes if she'd just made things even worse.

It's difficult as well to know what to do with herself while her boyfriend is … _indisposed_. She's learnt to sit with Sirius at the end, but not the beginning as it hurt when he strode back and forth downstairs, coming back eventually to tell her that everything was fine. She took on as many extra shifts as there were going at work, and once, finding herself stood uselessly and aimlessly outside Grimmauld, decided to make an overdue visit to see her parents.

Which was another mistake. With that unerring instinct parents have for getting up your nose from the best of intentions, they managed to say all the wrong things in remarkably quick time. All of which had culminated in her mother remarking, with bright, hopeful eyes, that she'd seen Bill Weasley in town the other day. What a pleasant young man he'd turned into, with such a good career ahead of him in the bank, and he mentioned he'd seen Nymphadora from time to time? Tonks made her excuses soon after and left, knowing she couldn't bear to see them trying to hide worry as well as disappointment if she told them anything about the pleasant older man, with no career prospects whatsoever, she actually was seeing. And thereby proving him right in everything he said on the matter.

This month she's vowed not to do any of that and so she sits at a chess board in her Auror robes, opposite a slightly uneasy Sirius, who keeps finding reasons to yell at Kreacher, and does what she finds most difficult. She waits.

"He'll be all right, you know. I'll go see him in a minute and give him a drink. You should have got some sleep last night instead of coming over so early." Sirius gives her a reassuring pat on the hand, which irritates her like mad, and directs his knight to take another of her pawns.

"You didn't." She looks at the board, trying to think of a way out of the mess she's got herself into.

"No, well…" Sirius makes a dismissive gesture, which could mean he doesn't sleep anyway (Remus, when pushed, has told her a few horrifying facts about the effects of long-term exposure to Dementors), but there's almost a smugness about it which makes her feel as if he's saying she shouldn't worry her pretty little head.

She orders her castle forward with a degree of force that makes it take off at speed. "I'm a bloody Auror," she says, and it comes out as more of a growl. "And that is Remus in there and I don't need protecting from what's happening to him. I need to understand, and never mind if it scares the shit out of me, or I think I can't bear it, because if he can then I certainly can."

"Okay." There's deep, furrowed lines on his forehead as Sirius stares down at the board and there's grey in his hair near the crown. "Did you ever wonder how he coped with transformations after all of us were lost to him in one way or another? No Wolfsbane back in those days."

"Go on."

"When he had to transform near people, when he wasn't sure if it was safe…. He used to break bones in his hand or his foot beforehand."

"Break…" Her voice falters and she stops.

"Yeah." Sirius pauses and gives his rook a shove towards her queen. He looks at her, the grey eyes hard. "Because the wolf—"

"Won't hunt if it's injured. It lays down and rests till it can run again." She looks steadily back. "Yes, I've read the books."

"Good." There's definite challenge in his eyes now. "But I bet it doesn't say in the books what he doesn't tell you. What he doesn't want you seeing. How humiliating it would be for any man to have the girl he worships walking in on him when he can barely move. Is as helpless as a tiny child. Having to clean up after him. The wolf isn't house trained, you know. He can control things to an extent, but it still craps if it really wants to."

She swallows. "You all helped him. When you were boys. He let you."

"We were idiots." Sirius grimaces. "It was an adventure to us."

She gets to her feet and walks over to the grimy window, feeling her face burn as she leans against the frame. Remembering last week when she'd found the body of one Winston Chadwick, who'd been tortured by Death-Eaters on the off-chance that, as his brother had fled from them days earlier, he might know something about the matter. She'd seen the naked body lying beneath the tree as she and Remus searched. Seen the abrasions on the wrists and ankles where he'd been tied, flecks of white, dead skin contrasting against the red and inflamed, and the battered leg which stuck out at an unnatural angle. The burn marks on the tender flesh of the inner arm and thighs, and then even higher…

Winston Chadwick had talked very quickly but they'd taken their time killing him for the sheer enjoyment of it.

It was her first body and she'd held herself together while Remus had gone to alert Dumbledore. She'd sat not far away picking at the grass, till the Aurors arrived and she gave her report. It was hours later, back in her own flat, that she was forced to suddenly run to the sink and retch until she was empty, her stomach heaving and her breath coming in great gasps.

It was Remus who wiped her chin with his strong, warm fingers. Remus who said, "It's all right, Tonks," and held her while she stared into his eyes and saw the strength of him. Felt it flow into her.

She draws a deep breath and thinks.

Sirius is still bent over the chess board, his fingers playing idly with an unhappy pawn. He looks up as she moves towards him.

"You might have been unfeeling idiots," she says, "but it took you three years to learn how to be Animagi and that's real dedication for a simple adventure. I don't think it's me who has any romantic notions about this, but you and Remus. If it was me who was ill, if it was my body letting me down each month, then I don't think Remus would even think twice. He'd be there for me."

Sirius draws his thick black brows together. Very slowly he smiles. "What are you going to do about it then?"

"I'm going to stop listening to you two and all your good advice." She looks at the board and pushes her queen right up next to his rook. On the attack. "Downstairs, isn't it?"

"Third door from the end." Sirius tells her the precautions, the spells, fetches the steaming goblet from the kitchen, and she nods solemnly and he nods back. In different circumstances, this might all be quite funny. Especially as she's just committed suicide at chess so it's no wonder he's grinning at her. The Blacks all like to win; her mother is an absolute terror at Exploding Snap.

It's probably the thickest door she's ever seen. But it opens smoothly with a faint click and she peers in cautiously, wand ready, giving herself time to adjust to the gloom and listen as she's been trained to do. She whispers "_Lumos_" at the lantern fixed high up in the corner of the room, and a dim glow casts a faint beam of light across the floor. Illuminating a man's bare foot.

Her eyes travel slowly up. He's awake because the blanket is wrapped round his middle and she can see the trembling hands clutch at it, pulling it higher as he realises who it is.

What do you say to a man after he's faced the horror of having his body ripped open and his skeleton reformed?

"Wotcher, Remus." She steps forward calmly, business-like, and kneels down next to the old mattress he's lying on. "Long time no see."

"… _Tonks_." The voice is hoarser than usual and very faint. Disbelieving too, but there's a note in there which isn't entirely discouraging.

"Here." She gently props his head against her arm, pushes his hair away from his sweat-ridden brow and tips the goblet to his lips, praying she doesn't spill it down him.

He drinks deeply for a long moment, draining every drop, and then wipes his mouth with the back of that shaky hand. "Tonks?"

"Brain not working at top speed yet, I see?" She grins at his haggard, parchment white face, and leans forward to kiss him.

"Tonks!" He tries to turn his head away.

"Oh God." She gives a mock sigh, thinking _please, please, please_. "Do I still have to chase after you? How am I supposed to retain any ladylike modesty around here when I have to do all the work?"

He stares at her, blinking painfully with watery eyes, as if unable to believe she's there.

"Tonks," he says again, and coughs. He swallows hard and a ghost of a smile flutters across his lips. "D-delighted as I am t-to see you here, I'm not really dressed for receiving visitors. Especially lovely young w-women."

"True." She stands up and quickly does a _Scourgify_ spell, even though from what she can see the room is surprisingly neat and tidy. Like Remus always is. She tries not to look at the long, thick rope of chain hanging from the wall. "What can I do for you?"

"You being here is – is very nice." A better smile this time, but she can make out the colour rising in his face. "But I do need to sleep for a bit. Very tired."

"Okay. Would it help if I stayed next to you?"

"I … couldn't ask that of you." But she's seen the expression in his eyes before he masked it. "Besides," a flash of mischief, "I m-may have mentioned we're not on equal footing as regards dress at the moment."

"You're right. We're not and that blanket does look warm." Her hand moves to the clasp of her robes. Upstairs she'd been thinking of some way to reach him, to show him that embarrassment with her was the last thing he should feel, and now she's working on instinct alone.

"You _can't_—"

"Shut up and close your eyes. I didn't really plan on taking my clothes off in front of you for the first time like this, but as you insist." She releases the clasp, watches his eyes widen to a degree that makes her want to laugh before they shut tight like an obedient child. The robes slither down her in a heap, and she shivers in the chilly air while tugging her underwear off. She hops frantically for a moment on one leg, struggling to disentangle herself from it all, thinking it would be just typical if she fell flat on her face right now, before lifting the edge of the blanket to slide underneath.

She hesitates and then moves cautiously next to him, inch by inch. Skin touches skin and she thinks _oh dear God_, and then he lifts his arm so that her head falls quite naturally onto his shoulder, and suddenly it seems as though there's a perfect place for her against his warm side, her arm tentatively resting across his middle and his wrapped round her holding her close.

"All right?" he asks, sounding far more composed than she feels. She's stark naked with Remus Lupin in a cold, damp cellar, and she never in a million years imagined it would be like this. She still doesn't know quite where to put her hands, or anything else for that matter, but she's happy.

"Yep. You?"

On another occasion, she thinks she'd like to slide her leg across his, explore those hairs that are lightly tickling her thigh and cheek…

"Mmn." His voice drops and his lips touch her temple softly. "Sleep now."

"Yes." She's got at least three hours before work and she hopes it's going to be thirty-three because she thinks she could lie like this for the rest of her life.

"Tonks?"

"Mmn?"

"You're so beautiful w-without your clothes on."

A heartbeat. "_What?_ You looked!"

A chuckle from deep in his chest which reverberates against her hand. "I'm only human. As you keep reminding me."

* * *

"I'd make a good best man, you know."

Even Sirius, it seems, is dropping hints these days, but Remus is glad of the change of subject because ever since Harry's head appeared in the fire that night, asking them about Snape's memories, Sirius has alternated between periods of anguish and anger and for the last hour or so achieved both at once.

"I'm not sure I'd make a good husband." He says it lightly but it's true.

Sometimes he wonders how it's possible to so happy, and then something will happen to remind him of the currently dormant fear that always sits waiting on his shoulder. It seems everyone's waiting for him to make a decision, although no one's actually saying it to his face. And for someone whose resolve up till now has been acceptance, to live with the fact that life isn't always fair, and he's grateful for what he's got considering what he is… Well, now he's starting to realise how he's deluded himself over the years.

He wants more than that. He wants her. And, glory be, she wants him in return.

Everyone else seems to think it's a good idea too, that it's feasible that this could actually work. No one seems to even consider the things that haunt him. Molly was so thrilled when he finally told her they were together that she went through two of his handkerchiefs in about five minutes. Dumbledore – who, as far as he was aware, nobody told – took him aside one night and rendered him speechless by saying with a twinkle in his eye that he believed some time off for two Order members together could be arranged, should it prove necessary. While Mad-Eye spent a few days looking as if he wanted to castrate him (which at least gave him hope that one day meeting Ted might not be half as bad), before gruffly admitting that Tonks could have done a lot worse as Lupin is a good man in a tight corner. A statement which Sirius is still making Remus pay for at every opportunity.

Even Snape, who was very deliberately uninformed, was recently heard to remark that he found the whole thing quite sickening and Nymphadora must be Confunded as the only rational explanation. Remus repeats this to Sirius, hoping it might amuse him, though as soon as he says it he wonders why in Merlin's name he thought that? Is he seeing everything through a haze of happiness now?

"The bastard's jealous," Sirius says morosely into his goblet, staring at the Firewhiskey as if its surface is going to ripple and form into a face.

"Severus jealous of me?" Remus laughs, trying to make it into a joke. But he'd had the same conversation with Tonks only the other night when she'd been asking him about his time at Hogwarts as both pupil and teacher, and it had been surprisingly easy to tell her things he'd never told another soul.

"I had friends, you see," he'd said to her, as if that explained everything and, in a way, it did.

"But didn't he?"

"Yes, but they weren't friends you could trust. They were friends for a cause they had in common, not because they had any liking for each other." He looked down at her, lying half across his lap, playing with his frayed shirt cuff, rolling it up because she said she liked his bare arms. He certainly liked hers. "Of course, I had a friend I shouldn't have trusted, either. Nor should any of us."

That thought brings him abruptly back to Sirius and the present, just as Sirius says bitterly, "Why did it have to be that memory Harry saw? Why not any of the good things James did?"

"James wasn't perfect." Remus pauses to pick his words carefully. "It's going to be a bit of a shock for Harry to realise that, but he's probably going to be glad of it in time."

"He saw me as well."

"And he saw me doing nothing. Knowing Harry, that's going to be the hardest for him to understand."

"You'd have been a much better choice of godfather than me." The Firewhiskey is swirled round in the goblet again.

"No, I wouldn't." Remus speaks firmly, knowing he has to stop this before it gets going. "James and Lily wouldn't even have considered anyone other than you. Harry doesn't need me, but he needs you. And when he comes home again, you can tell him about all those other things James did."

Sirius turns his head away; pushing a hand back through his hair to let it fall forward, the way he always does to hide emotion. "You're so bloody sensible, Moony," he says at last, and if his voice cracks a little they both pretend not to notice.

"I'm good in a tight corner." Remus smiles.

"Yeah, aren't you just?" With that lightening change of mood which is all too familiar lately, Sirius sits bolt upright and stares at him. "Why are you still here?"

"Oddly enough, I'm listening to you rabbit on—"

"No! Why aren't you with Tonks? You're never here at this time. Unless…" The grey eyes narrow suspiciously. "What have you done? More to the point, what haven't you done?"

"I'm thinking."

"_Thinking?_" Sirius says it as though it's the most bizarre word he's ever heard. "Oh, God. You're dithering about marrying the poor girl, aren't you? I've tested her out, you know. Like I did Lily. Her heart's in the right place."

"Yes, about a quarter of the way down on the left hand side. It's amazing." Remus blinks. "_You tested her out?_ I'm lucky she's still speaking to me."

"She won't be doing anything to you if you don't get your sorry arse over there." Sirius frowns. "She's crazy about you and it's quite obvious to those of us who see beyond the give-nothing-away demeanour you like to cultivate that you're crazy about her. Most people get married for reasons that aren't half as good. You need to take a risk, and jump into the void and live a bit."

"I—" Remus stops. There's so much he could say and so much he can't. There's a whole host of things unspoken, unsaid between him and Sirius, and he thinks both of them are frightened to start.

Of course, he's always frightened. Frightened of rejection. So he does nothing; allows events to take their course without him. Chooses by not choosing. Exactly what he's doing now with Tonks.

"What?" Sirius is watching him closely.

For a moment Remus nearly asks him if he ever thinks about how James felt at the end. Facing Voldemort. Knowing his wife and child were almost certainly about to die and he was powerless to stop it.

"Nothing." He smiles and stands up. "You going to be all right?"

"Yes." Sirius raises his goblet. "Not that sober, but all right. I'm going to think of things to tell Harry about his father that that bastard Snivellus doesn't even know. You go and make it up to the pink-haired one. Keep women happy, that's what I always say, and the most direct way to do it always made me happy too."

Remus hopes the give-nothing-away demeanour is still working because he's dithered over that as well. Though this hasn't been his fault as lately they've either been exhausted, or interrupted, or it just hasn't been the time or the place for something he desperately wants to make right for her. _If_ he can, and that's been another thing to worry about. Though as she opens the door and smiles at him, and he sees she's got the black, sparkly top he likes so much on, it only takes one fairly chaste kiss of greeting to make him think he really has been out of his mind.

"You're late," she says, but the immediacy of her response to him suggests she's not annoyed as he decides to make up for any momentary chasteness. One kiss quickly becomes several which grow in length and intensity.

"Remus," she says, leaning back against the wall as he smoothes her hair aside to kiss her neck and very gently bites down on the softest part where it joins the shoulder. "Ah… do - do you plan on having anything to eat?"

He stops and looks at her. Remembering their usual routine which he seems to be rewriting to his own insistent desires. Normally this is the last part and doesn't take place in the hallway. "No. Do you?"

"No. I—" She stops as well, her slender hand resting lightly on his face. The dark eyes are puzzled but shining with trust. Believing in him. He can believe in himself when she looks like that. "Are you all right? You seem … different." She blushes. "Not that I don't like this new Remus who takes one step in my doorway and starts kissing me madly. You've no idea how much I want—"

She stops. Bites her lip. Waits.

He looks at her and marvels how he could have come to love her so very much and yet not give her what she needs. Instead he'd just taken everything from her that she'd given him so willingly, while she'd been waiting patiently for when he was ready.

So much time wasted. _Jump into the void and live_.

"Come on." He takes her hand gently and leads her over to the sofa, with its ridiculous purple and pink pattern and pile of cushions. He chucks some of them aside, and then a few more, so they finally have room to sit. He reaches down and takes off her oversized fluffy slippers. He touches her hair and strokes some of the pink silken strands, letting them slide for a moment through his fingers. And all the time her dark eyes are watching him and watching him.

"I love you, Dora."

He feels her tremble slightly. He sees her throat work. He feels his heart open and it's all because of her.

"You're everything to me," he says huskily, and he's not sure who moves first, but she's in his arms, in his lap, her fingers tangled in his hair, and he's kissing her. Her lips open underneath his as she makes a faint sound that is so naked and vulnerable it hurts him, and then, as he feels the soft pressure of her breasts against his chest, every part of his body lights on fire for her.

She whispers his name against his mouth. No one's ever said it like she does. He wants to taste her, to touch her, to know her completely, and he starts to do all those things as she tugs at him, pulling him downwards and he realises they're half kneeling, then lying, on the floor. He puts an arm out to protect her head, but she pushes it away almost impatiently and helps him lift the black top off, sending it spinning into the far corner of the room, followed by her jeans which clang noisily into the fireplace. While her hands are eagerly untucking his shirt, fumbling with his belt and, _oh God_, sliding up his back making him shiver wherever they touch.

They kiss, they touch, they kiss again. And again. The bra comes off eventually and he thinks she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. More fumbling with his belt and then his trousers are ludicrously twisted round one leg, threatening to cut off all circulation before he kicks them away. His one hand is on her breast, teasing and caressing, hearing her sigh of pleasure, feeling the muscles in her stomach contract as he lets the other stroke its way slowly down to her thigh. Desire builds in him as the length of her body creates a sweet agony of pressure against his.

One more heart-pounding kiss and he forces himself to raise his head. Looking down at her. Trying to keep his hands still, though they persist in stroking her sides, and not close his eyes at the sensation of lying here like this. With her. On her. Feeling her rising up to meet him and the heat surrounding them both.

"You're sure?" he whispers.

Her hands cup his face, pulling him fiercely down to her lips. Dark eyes blaze into his and take his breath away.

"Love me, Remus," she says. "Don't you dare stop."

* * *

**Thank you for reading - I hope you enjoyed it. The concluding part will be along next week, but in the meantime reviewers get to discuss just how good Remus is in a tight corner with him personally...**


	2. Chapter 2

**Want Part II**

All she's aware of is white light pressing down on her shut eyelids and a hard, unfamiliar bed beneath her. The bed seems to be dipping down at one side and the firm pillows aren't so much cushioning her head as holding it steady, and… at the correctly prescribed angle for healing possible head and neck trauma.

_Shit._

She knows that light. She knows that unmistakable smell and mix of many different potions in the air. She's been here before. Too many times as a child.

She forces herself to very slowly assess the situation. Never forget your training, even if every instinct is telling her to sit up and find out what's going on. She moves her toes first, wriggling them, rotating her ankles, raising her knees slightly and – thank Merlin – they might ache and protest at the effort, but they all still move.

Her fingers. Then her hands. She brushes against another warm one, which stirs. Long fingers slide into hers, and her left hand is clasped tightly, sending reassurance flooding through her.

"Dora?"

She tries to speak but it takes two or three goes. Her tongue seems stuck to the roof of her mouth, which tastes bizarrely of greengages. She wracks her brain momentarily for what potion that could possibly be and his grip tightens on her, reminding her he must be worried. She's fallen, hasn't she? She's always falling, nothing new there. Down stairs, into drains, over troll legs. Falling _for_ Remus Lupin, who makes her feel like no one else does and has taught her about another kind of magic…

"Remus?"

"I'm here. Take your time. It's all right."

But there's anxiety behind the calmness in his voice. She forces her eyes open, though the weight of them nearly defeats her for a minute.

He swims dizzily into view as she tries to sit up. Not one of her muscles or limbs seems to approve of the idea.

"Be careful, you've—"

"I'm fine. Just give me a— Ow!"

"You've got a lot of bruising. The healers say—"

"Oh, what do they know?" She says it crossly because she's not too fond of healers, who all seem to be absolutely fascinated by a Metamorphmagus, and must simply have loved having had her unconscious and at their tender mercies. Well playtime is over, sorry boys and girls. She's going home as soon as possible.

She's finally sitting up. He's half sat on the edge of the bed, still holding onto her hand and she takes a few deep breaths as the room starts to spin a little slower.

"—and you gave your head quite a bump as you fell. You haven't finished all your potions yet, and they say you're going to be very sleepy as well as a bit disorientated…" He stops, voice trailing away as she looks at him properly.

A small smile. "I'm so glad you're awake," he whispers and leans forward to kiss her temple, letting his lips linger there.

"Yes." Images are filling her mind, memories flooding back of the events that have brought her here. And his face. There's relief there, but he's so very tired and so very calm.

But it's the unnatural tiredness and numbness of grief, when you feel so much that the mind shuts down and you function on memory only. Going through the motions. She's seen it on the face of the Ministry official, whose job it is to inform families of death and disaster.

She looks down the bed and sees the pillow with the dent where his head has rested. He's been lying across it watching her. For many hours, by the looks of things, and the way he clearly aches as much as she does.

"Remus?"

"Yes?"

"Did … we all make it?"

"Perhaps you should get some—"

"Did we?"

"No."

_Not Harry. Not anyone_. "Tell me then."

"Dora, I—" He stops. She knows before he says it.

"Sirius."

"…Yes."

"How?" She wants to say _Why?_

He tells her, so quietly that she has to strain to hear, and she doesn't think she can feel anything any more. Not for herself. Only for Remus, who has suffered the loss of more people he's loved than anyone should have to and now has lost his last friend again.

And for what? Because she let Bellatrix get past her?

She tries to tell him how sorry she is for so much, but the words won't go past her choked throat. Instead she stares at him hopelessly, trying to pull him against her, to hold him, and let him rest his head against her breast. But her arms are too weak and he's wiping the tears from her cheeks with his fingers. Sliding his hands into her hair and pulling her tightly into his side. Rocking her, saying her name over and over.

"I love you," she finally manages, into his shirt with a button digging into her cheek. Meaning _let me comfort you, let me try and make the pain go away for you. You're not alone any more, Remus. Not like before. Let me help you_.

Instead he says, "He laughed at her, you know. Right at the end. He threw back his head and laughed like mad. Like he did when he thrashed us all at chess."

She forces a smile. Pretends it's some comfort and all she can hope is that it will be in the days to come.

"Your parents are outside somewhere," he says at last. "I promised to go and find them when you woke up. Dumbledore's spoken to them."

She nods against his damp shirt front. "I don't suppose they knew who you were," she says, without thinking.

"Let's say they were a little surprised to find me here." She looks at him, but he smiles and strokes her hair. "We'll sort it all out later. Do you want me to go and get them?"

"In a bit."

She leans into him and shuts her eyes, feeling the white light pressing on them again. Thinking of Sirius, most Noble member of the House of Black.

* * *

He's spent the day walking.

He walked after the meeting with Dumbledore. Walked for hours trying to see another way, a way that would enable him still to be wholly selfish and keep what he should never have had. But there never had been a way and he should have known that right from the start. Before it took the events of the last two weeks to point out the blindingly obvious to him. There were boundaries between him and _normal_ people which shouldn't be crossed. He'd not only crossed them, he'd thought he could ignore them, and now she was paying the penalty for it as he'd known all along she would.

Jump into the void, Sirius had said. They'd both done that in their different ways and he wasn't sure right now if he was any more alive than Padfoot.

"If there was any other way," Dumbledore had said, rubbing his eyes tiredly, looking immeasurably sad, "then I wouldn't ask this of you. I am all too aware I am using you for what you are. But it's the man who Remus Lupin _is_ that I need to do this. If just one less person fights for Voldemort, then that one person could be the difference between winning and losing. And people listen to you."

Dora had listened to him too. Listened as he'd led her to this.

He's walking after seeing her as well. He can't stand still because if he does he sees her small, white face, washed of all colour by a storm of emotion. Looking as if he's struck her.

"Why?" she kept asking. "_Why?_"

"Because there's so much against us, Dora. Everything, in fact. I just pretended there wasn't. And only one thing for us."

"I thought that one thing was supposed to mean everything."

"Love isn't enough. I want it to be but … it isn't."

"It's the only thing there is, you fool! Yes, it's a risk. Yes, there are no guarantees and, yes, we could end up hating the sight of each other a few years down the line. But that's true for everyone, Remus!"

But not everyone has to face the prospect of Fenrir Greyback. Whose philosophy on life is an eye for an eye, a lesson taught for an insult given, and who, if he ever learnt he had a spy in his midst, would seek to make that spy pay in the most direct way imaginable. By hurting those dearest to him.

Not everyone has to face the prospect of a potential husband who can only offer hardship and suffering; no home, no family and no likelihood of anything ever being different.

She still wouldn't listen. It confirmed that she was too young to face the brutal realities of war and what life with him would have involved. How that joyous radiance, which had already dulled since Sirius' death, and now Amelia Bones' as well as Emmeline's, would have gradually faded away. Not her fault and he can take comfort from the fact that one day she'll come to realise what a lucky escape she'd had. While his will be that he'll forever know she once loved him.

It doesn't feel much like comfort at the moment. He's had barely an hour long conversation with a twenty-four year old girl and emerged shattered, weak-kneed and sick to his very soul.

"You're trying to make me hate you," she'd said quietly at the end. "I won't do it. I'm not giving up on you, _on us_, even if you seem hell bent on giving up on yourself. You might be going away but you can take that with you. You think about it every day and every night. I'll be waiting for the time you finally let the real Remus Lupin out and say you need me."

He'd realised he had no idea how to finish the conversation. It seemed as though he couldn't even finish them properly. Eventually he'd said, with his hand twisting the doorknob, "I understand from Molly that Charlie Weasley is coming home for the weekend. A very nice young man, I've always thought."

She'd looked at him as though he was some insect that should be crushed underfoot. "_Charlie Weasley_? Are you losing your _mind?_"

He thinks it's quite possible he is. It'll help when he has to live among the werewolves and see the poverty and despair of their lives.

He walks on. If he stands still, he knows he'll realise he's dying by inches. Like Sirius was in Grimmauld.

* * *

Molly's answer to everything would appear to be a cup of tea. This one comes with several biscuits and a very large slice of Victoria sponge. There is definitely an extra helping of cream on top too, and is that a couple of strawberries hidden behind it all?

"You're trying to fatten me up," Tonks says, smiling at the older woman. Remembering how she used to be secretly terrified when she first met her at Grimmauld and Molly had seemed, much like her own mother, so very good at all the householdy things that Tonks isn't.

It was almost funny, looking back, how she'd been so intimidated by someone's ability to crack eggs and mix flour and sugar into them. Now she'd just shrug and think it's a lot more useful, these days, to be good at other things instead.

Though it doesn't pay to underestimate Molly at anything. She's just blasted a gnome into what must be nearly oblivion for pulling up her flowers as the two women stepped out into the garden to make the most of the sunny skies and a rare afternoon off for Tonks.

"Well, dear," Molly casts what she obviously thinks is a less than noticeable glance at Tonks' waistline. "When you're on your own and working long, tiring days, it's all too easy to skip meals. I said exactly the same at Christmas to—"

She stops. Tonks almost sighs, wanting to assure her that she won't fall to bits if his name gets mentioned. She likes hearing it, in fact. It proves the great prat continually wrong in his assumption that he makes no impact on anyone's lives and that he can disappear without anyone caring.

In fact there's a queue of people who care. Headed by her.

"Remus," she says, to help Molly out.

"Yes." Molly looks as if there's something she wants to say. It's bound to be a variation on a common theme, such as: 'Have you heard from him recently?'

To cover the silence, which is threatening to get awkward, she says, "I made him a cake once. Wallop cake, he christened it. I hadn't got the right ingredients so I improvised, and it didn't really work, and I ended up walloping everything I'd got into it." She smiles at Molly's expression. "He ate it. Said it held a whole multitude of flavours in one bite."

"Have you heard from him?" Molly gets the question out at last.

"Not for a couple of months." She sees Molly look hopeful and says quickly, "We went over the same old things as usual. Same old result. He checks in when he can with Mad-Eye, of course, but that isn't often." She adds lightly, "He always asks after me, I'm told."

"And how are you, Tonks? Really? Because I can see with my own eyes that you're suffering, just like I could see how that silly, stubborn man was at Christmas though he wouldn't admit it."

This question is the one that takes her aback. It's an effort not to touch the dull brown hair she hates. It makes her think of the time Dawlish, in front of Proudfoot and Savage, said, "You look bloody awful, Tonks. I hope you're not planning to go off on sick leave at a time like this and leave the workers to it. You're not much use if you can't morph." It had made her take on an extra shift just to stick two fingers up at the bastard, who'd be keeling over long before she was. She'd seen him heaving his guts up after only a couple of hours of fun and frolics with the Dementors round Hogwarts.

She takes a bite of cake to hide her emotion and says, round a mouthful, "We're all suffering, Molly. It's war. It's the worry of what's happening to him that gets to me. There are always dreadful rumours, and by the time I've found out that one isn't true there's another one. He was so down when I saw him because he doesn't think he's doing any good, and he looked terrible, but, of course, he's doing the normal soldiering on crap. God forbid he'd ever sound like a whinger or anything like that." She blinks furiously. "_I hate that_. I'm so bloody angry with Dumbledore because what's the point of it all? He's all alone, and he's got no Wolfsbane, and he's probably breaking bones in his feet right now while we sit here drinking tea. It's not doing any good, and if the stupid sod does go and get himself killed out there doing something heroically self-sacrificing I may not know about it for weeks. I only hope he's screaming in frustration at it all from a rooftop or something because at least that's _real_."

"Oh my dear." Molly blows her nose noisily on a large pink handkerchief.

"I'm sorry. I just have to sound off about it all sometime." Tonks swallows hard and thinks of all the things she can't say. Like how her body aches for the comfort of his at night. Though she thinks Molly would understand as all those children probably weren't found sitting waiting on the doorstep. Aloud she says, "It's a good job I have you to talk to."

"And your parents."

"They - I don't want them to worry more than they do." Tonks doesn't want to say more and Molly seems to realise this because she says, "I haven't asked you what I wanted to."

Tonks looks at her enquiringly. "What?"

"Your Patronus." Molly goes very red in the face. "It's so rare it changes and I – well, I, don't want to offend—"

Tonks takes out her wand. "Keeps me safe from a million Dementors, this does." She concentrates for a second, hears Remus' voice in her head, that amused, intimate tone he had for her alone, and imagines him smiling at her. The bright, shimmering light bursts out of the end of her wand.

"Oh my… It's _beautiful_." Molly looks entranced as the large wolf, which seems to consist of silvery mist yet somehow has the suggestion of a touch of brown here and there, trots almost playfully round her garden, even stopping to apparently sniff at the now rather bare flower bed before walking back towards the two women. Extending its head towards Tonks' outstretched hand and touching it lightly with its nose before slowly dissolving away.

"It's very friendly." Tonks smiles. "At least till a Dementor has a go at me."

"I've never seen anything quite like that." Molly shakes her head. "What are you going to do?"

"Oh… Carry on. Wait for something to happen and pray it's nothing bad. Do what the men folk seem to think the womenfolk should do around here, which is keep quiet and wait."

Molly gives a disbelieving snort. "It's the women that make things change. The men just like to think they're the ones doing it."

"I hope you're right. I'm not very good at doing either."

"You should eat that cake while you are. Keep your strength up."

Tonks reaches obediently for a strawberry. In the bright light of the sun, she thinks she can still see a shimmering, silvery outline. Watching her.

* * *

Her doorstep.

He can't quite believe that he's here again, that she's letting him in (though he did have to prove he knew the title of her favourite Weird Sisters' song, and she knows having to say it out loud embarrasses him considerably), or that Dumbledore is really dead.

He walks into the hallway and everything is exactly as he remembers. As he's seen it in his dreams. He tries very hard not to recall the last time they were stood here together and from the tightening of her lips into a very thin line she's doing the same.

Somehow that gives him a degree of hope; though exactly what he is hoping for he couldn't say.

"You must have been up early," she says abruptly. "Your note," she adds as they sit down. Her curling up on the sofa with her legs tucked under her, and him sitting stiffly in the corner armchair which feels a lot more awkward than any of the broken ones he'd sat on with the werewolves.

"Oh… yes." He gathers his wits. "I wanted to come and see you straight away after - after last night, but someone had to tell Aberforth and there were so many others to tell too. And I went with Mad-Eye to set some security wards and curses at Grimmauld. We're on borrowed time there with so many Secret Keepers now being created." He stops, losing track of what he's saying. "Tonks—"

"How's Aberforth?"

"Not great."

She nods and an uneasy silence falls between them.

He looks at her properly for the first time since last night in the hospital wing. All white and brown, like the vibrancy has been drained out of her. The twist at his heart again; this time like a knife.

"Tonks—"

"No," she says, looking down at her hands. "I've worked a twelve hour day at a Ministry in panic stricken uproar and I'm so tired I can't think straight any more. You must be as well. I need to make peace with you in some way, but I can't do it tonight. It's like after Sirius died when I just went numb. We can talk in the morning. I don't have to be in till late."

"All right." He feels like the leaden weight, which had lifted momentarily while talking to her, is back on his shoulders again, but then what could he expect? And why does the thought of peace between them now feel like the bitterest of disappointments?

He starts to rise.

"Where you going?"

"I thought—"

"You can try the sofa," she says mildly, and a glimmer of a smile appears on her lips. "You've slept in the bed and on the floor here. Might as well try out all available options."

"Thank you."

"Well I wouldn't throw anyone out on a night like this."

He swallows. "It's a beautiful night, Tonks."

"So it is." She gives him a look he can't identify. "I'll take the shower first, I think."

It's almost the last he sees of her unless he counts the stilted conversation over cheese and tomato sandwiches. They'd stuck to safe subjects, which were so few that she'd soon said she couldn't keep her eyes open and fetched him a pillow and blanket. A pillow which smells of her and the scent she wears in the hollow of her throat. Something between flowers and citrus.

He stares at the shifting patterns of shadow and light on the ceiling. His body has demanded sleep for hours, but his mind is constantly whirling between fragments of former conversations, half-formed, half-mad fantasies, and visions of a future in which Voldemort picks them off one by one and he has to watch her and Harry die.

But overriding all that, clamouring at him incessantly as it has been ever since he stood in the hospital wing last night, is the knowledge that he has things he must say. That she had had the courage to speak out and he hadn't.

He's not sure when he knew his entire life is a lie based on fear. Probably when he left her to go and live amongst the werewolves. Dumbledore had told him to believe in the man he was, but instead he'd thought only of _what _he was and let that overshadow everything else. And he still thought he was right.

But it no longer felt right.

Letting her go. Letting her find a future she deserves. Letting his mind convince him that he was being unselfish and doing the best he can for her.

He doesn't believe a word of it. He's not quite sure how he ever did.

He rolls over again and breathes in her scent.

The bedroom door opens cautiously with the softest of sounds, suggesting a care and thought that is rather spoilt when it is followed by the sound of someone obviously stubbing something against the wall and a hastily muffled swear word.

He smiles. "It's all right, Tonks. I'm not asleep."

"Sorry." The light goes on and she's stood there in her favourite soft grey and brown pyjamas. She used to say they reminded her of his hair. She looks quickly at him, then away again as she rubs her foot. "Couldn't sleep," she says, rather unnecessarily. "Thought a drink might help."

"I'll fetch it for you." He gets up rather hesitantly, suddenly conscious that he's in the t-shirt and pyjama bottoms he'd left here (which she'd handed him without a word), just as she's saying, "It's no bother." They come up against each other in the middle of the little room, stopping short just before there's any contact between them.

"Dora?" he asks, seeing her face still turned away from him.

"It's over, isn't it?" she whispers. For a moment he thinks she's talking about them, and he can't speak as though he's been winded with the shock of it, and then he realises she means Dumbledore. The Order.

"No. We've still got—"

"And you. Out here. I'm lying in there thinking about the way we can continue to work together. Be friends. Like we used to be. It would be a good idea, wouldn't it?"

"I—" He stops as he realises this is perhaps his final ever chance to deny what he wants. To agree with her and then walk away. Make the cut and make it permanent.

Except that he suddenly doesn't care about doing the right thing. He's beyond exhaustion and… _he simply does not care_.

He knows now that if you walk away from love, you ultimately pay the price in your soul. He'd made both of them pay because he hadn't understood that. She had. She'd tried to tell him and he'd been so fearful he'd not listened to or understood a word. She had years of wisdom on him when it came to this.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers and puts his arms round her.

She stiffens for a moment and then allows the embrace. "Friends then?" she says, head bowed, and there's a choked edge to her voice that suggests she's on the verge of tears.

"Yes, of course." He ignores the disappointment again at her words because he has to make this better for her somehow, and kisses the side of her head. Strokes her hair. Her arms slip round him and he feels her breasts press against his chest. "We'll—"

He stops. His heart is pounding. The rise and fall of her own pyjama top is much quicker than it should be, and he can see a pulse thudding in the vein on her neck. His body, which has ached and sweated for so many of those nights without her, is on fire again at the simple contact. And he's about to have a discussion on being friends?

_Jump into the void and live a bit_. He can almost hear Padfoot yelling it at him.

"No." Gently he pushes her away from him. Puts a finger under her chin and tips her head up, finding those dark eyes aren't tearful at all as he feared but full of frustration and grief and anger. And the most vivid life blazing back at him. It makes him want to cheer. It fills him with the strength to go on. This is the Dora he knows and loves, still alive and very much kicking, despite everything that's happened.

About to kick him as well, if he's not careful.

He wonders if she's pushing the question of friends now to push him in turn. She's a clever woman, is Nymphadora Tonks, and she knows him so very well.

He takes a breath. "We're not friends; we can't go back to being friends. It was always something more than that, right from the beginning."

She stares at him. "Which leaves us where, then?"

"Where we've always been. I'm a werewolf and you could live a very different life to the one I can give you. But," he says quickly before she can speak, "the werewolf is the real Remus Lupin and didn't you tell me you'd like to meet him one day?"

"We always end up at _werewolf_ though, don't we?"

"We do. Because it's a fact and neither of us can afford to ignore it. It matters now more than ever in this world, but perhaps it doesn't matter as much as I thought it once did. Half a man or not, whether it's fair or not, I need you. And I want you."

She makes the faintest of sounds, almost a sigh, and then moves a little away. He knows it's not enough, doesn't even start to make up for what he's done, but he also knows she's seen the best of him and the worst of him and the choice now is hers instead of his. It's the only thing he can give her.

She's staring at the rug in front of the fireplace. Where they once lay and made love and planned a future together.

"I can't give you a home, Dora," he says hoarsely. "Nor a family."

"I know." She straightens and walks up to him. He can see she's trembling slightly, but she fixes him with her gaze and dares him to move. To run again. "The thing is," she says, and her hand reaches up almost idly to touch his face, to slide into his hair as it always used to do. She smiles. "The thing you don't seem to get, Remus, is that you're my family and you're my home."

"_Dora_."

"Mmn." Her hand plays with his hair, curling a piece round her finger. "So does this new Remus Lupin believe I still have to kiss him first?"

He touches her cheek, traces the outline of her lips. He leans forward and kisses her very gently. With love.

Nothing else matters for the longest moment.

They separate and she looks up at him.

"We've a lot to talk about," she says, "and even more to think about. But I want you too."

* * *

**_Hope you enjoyed this story, and I hope you'll let me know if you did! Reviewers get a one-to-one with Remus, who's finally realised what he's wanted all along..._**


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